good evening everyone
it has to it please rise let us pray
Almighty God we gather tonight and ask
that you would share your love of
Justice with those who administer our
city help them to govern with wisdom and
compassion so that the poor and
powerless are treated fairly and with
justice open their ears to the cries for
help
from those caught in cycles of poverty
abuse or violence give them wisdom to
know how best to respond and the courage
to do the right thing even when it may
not be popular and under their guidance
may all the people flourish may be
lasting peace and plenty for all this we
ask in Jesus name Amen the Republic for
which it stands one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all
beeping it is 5:30 mm honey I'll call
this green in Fergus Falls City Council
to order roll call please here yep here
here here here first item I think your
honor members good evening on your desk
this evening we did print off a new
agenda there has been a few items that
have been added I'll just quickly for
the benefit of viewers at home read
those we're adding a resolution
approving a seven-year lease with Otter
Tail telecom for fiber connections which
is an existing lease to the consent
agenda a resolution awarding a contract
for diseased tree removal and tree
trimming services under awarding of bids
directly after this and then also a tiff
discussion related to the dairy property
under staff reports we have no public in
a bid contract or disease tree removal
and tree trimming services and then
question our public works director
good evening guy
good evening mayor and councilmembers
yes as stated we have before you a
resolution to approve treatment
contractor proposal we had publicized
requests for proposals in the Daily
Journal on the city's website and then
the three proposals were sent to
separate contractors just inviting them
to bid on this we received only one in
return from cars Tree Service and their
bid was complete and on time their
proposal is to remove Dutch elm disease
trees that the city marks and that's
also do the tree trimming service that
the city forester directs them to and
then they will also be on hand to take
care of any storm damaged trees if we
have need for that their proposal is
based on a historic average of tree
removals so what they've bit is about
$165,000 and that's based on that
historic average as indicated in the
memo we have budgeted up to one hundred
and eighty thousand dollars for tree
work for 2020 hopefully we won't use it
on
that's all order but that's what we hope
so it's to approve the resolution to
award this contract to cars Tree Service
for the years of 2020 and 2021 thank you
Thank You Brent I'll second
Thank You Krista roll call please yes
yes
yes yes yes yes here yes under petitions
we have a number of updates this evening
we'll start with mayor Shire and members
of the council I appreciate this
opportunity to give you a little
quarterly update of what's going on at
the library right now and I want to
thank you for your support as you've
come into the library to visit I've
appreciated your kindness um the
employees of Fergus Falls have been so
supportive and patient with answering
questions and I'm grateful this is truly
a great place to be in work so my intent
is just a little update that's not going
to be data Laden because Public
Libraries file their annual reports with
the state of Minnesota in April so after
that time I'll come back with data
regarding circulation statistics and and
such but in the interim I can tell you
that we do know that we're seeing about
a 17% increase in library use since the
opening of the new building and about
500 people a day are entering the space
now none of this was surprising because
historically when libraries build new
buildings and or remodel they do see an
increase in use and so our goal is going
to be you know try to maintain that an
increase and not see a decline so we're
gonna work diligently to do that another
reason why we see use increases because
people see this new space as being
everyone's on an equal footing no one's
been there so if you've never been there
before
you're just like everyone else it's a
it's a first time visit and of course
the awareness from the campaign to build
the building creates a lot of awareness
and curiosity about the site so the
library having doubled in size and
increased in busyness we were spending a
lot of times working on opportunities to
increase our efficiencies and the work
we do so we've been focusing on some
system redesign and design thinking so
that we can get more done in less time
and it's a great opportunity for the
library staff to work collaborative
collaboratively to solve
problems so in 2019 we added the
position of an early childhood librarian
from April to December her programming
had 5,000 people in attendance so we
would definitely deem this a successful
endeavor our ability to provide early
learning opportunities and early
literacy skills really helps children to
develop self-esteem and contributes to
their academic success going forward and
we believe builds a strong foundation
for our community so the use of the
library and the attendance and the
programming demonstrates that the
community truly does see the library as
a value-added service that it's their
third space a gathering place a place
for civic engagement and I also want to
encourage people to recognize the public
library as a partner in continuing
education and economic development we
live in a knowledge economy where goods
and services are driven by knowledge
created and libraries are positioned
well to provide access to necessary
information needed to do that the
library is also able to respond to the
needs of our convenience culture with
access to digital content and online
databases actually 24 hours a day seven
days a week so the libraries that serve
as a place for continuing education as
well as a remote office for many people
in and around our community now as we
begin our journey into 2020 and that's
all about seeing clearly right we hope
to help clear the path to library use
for other people by removing barriers to
access we're gonna be focused on
removing both perceived barriers the
idea that maybe I don't belong at the
library as well as those real barriers
such as I don't have transportation to
the library which can be a significant
issue for some people in our community
so we want to make sure that we're doing
everything that we can to help people
access the resources that they need so
thank you thank you yep you know thanks
to you and all your staff for the work
that you do and then working the
community it's hard to believe that that
buildings been opening here
it has its real assets again thank you
to your staff
item number two I'll call in our city
finance director Bill sundar to
introduce our seat for your small
investment healthcare bill thank you
your honor
tonight we have Mike Hessian here with
advanced Capital Group and um our city
investment portfolio is managed by
Galliard Capital Management and so as a
separate group we have advanced capital
come in and work with us on the
investment committee and Mike will talk
to you about that a little bit but as
far as oversight are we going in the
right direction
kind of reviewing the performance of the
actual money manager as well so I'm just
gonna call Mike up here and you have on
your desks on the handout that goes
through our 2019 and review of solve all
that Mike tanking good evening thank you
so what's your we I present this Anton
report you should have in front of you
if you look at page two of that before
it shows that this is the the fun the
long-term fund for the combined city
assets and over time since 1996 when
this is track that's grown to twenty
eight point eight million dollars and we
the middle part of that page shows the
performance for this last year 2019 for
the calendar year 2019 performance was a
return on the total investment was 1
million five hundred twenty four
thousand dollars so it was actually good
return for a purity where interest rates
are extremely low but six hundred
thousand dollars of that was interest
the rest of that was because bonds are
useful fallings of bond prices are
increasing so if that reverses like it
has been going up and down recently and
we can see a decline but this 2019 was
an exceptional year for the return
we compare the return of this fund on
page three so different benchmarks the
overall market is that secured groups in
percentage chairman for the past year
it's a five point four percent and each
of these periods that you see on page
three the return of your fund is better
than that that we the index after fees
on page four the reminder of how these
funds are government there's an
investment policy statement that
describes how the funds should be
invested state statutes also dictate
house city reserve funds can be invested
to follow those rules and report on
compliance but the City Council has
approved and adopted the policy and
accepts this annual review there's an
investment committee that meets
quarterly it goes over the results of
this and our firm vans Capital Group
serves as an independent oversight to
the investment manager listed below the
investment manager is Gaillard
five museum policy is in compliance with
the investment policy on page five and
lastly something different for this year
page six
yes he concurs gallier charges a
management fee of 0.17% of the assets
and would compare that to a peer group
of 156 other investment managers and
there's only on that 156 managers
there's only four that had a lower fee
of what you're currently paying and
three of those are passive index
approaches not designed to meet the
index thank you bug does so your physics
extraordinarily good it actually has
been a fee that's been grandfathered in
for ever since you started with with
Galliard and if you were to go good
evening thank you for having me this
evening so for the council members
you'll see in front of you you've gotten
a lovely book printed courtesy of
material Indians for those in the public
in the audience that's available on our
website greater Fergus Falls comm so I'm
very excited to be giving you kind of an
overview of what we've done since May of
2019 here we go so just a quick overview
I'll tell you a little bit about remind
everybody what Rader Fergus Falls is
I'll talk about our strategic framework
which is what guides our work as we work
day to day on top of what all four of
our goals and then we'll tell you about
what we're looking ahead
19:24 so a little bit about Greater
Fergus Falls those of you that don't
know it was created in July of 2018 um
it's a non-profit Economic Development
Corporation so while we're not part of
the city we're very lucky and grateful
to have a service agreement with the
city to do economic development for the
city and this is a great way to
structure economic development if you
look over the years across the state of
Minnesota several municipalities and
metro areas have moved economic
development from outside the walls of
City Hall into a non profit there's
several reasons why this has beneficial
to communities that were able to work
deals a lot faster kind of flush out
maybe deals that aren't so good and we
have a bigger opportunity to fundraise
and apply for grants so we can focus
more money on helping current businesses
and recruiting recruiting new businesses
and helping current businesses a couple
of things as I've been here the past
eight or nine months that are good to
note we're governed by an 18 member
Board of Directors and our board doesn't
review or approve any type of
developments or proposals that come
toward us so obviously that's all up to
the city whether it's a pulling a
building permit or having to go in from
the Planning Commission or City Council
our board does not make those decisions
they simply govern our work and help us
with different initiatives and that type
of thing I have been here since May of
2009 and we have a lot of great things
that are going on so there's just a
picture of our board of directors
that was a last year we have a few good
of left in the field that have started
for 2020 so just a reminder of what our
mission is our mission is to support and
grow the area business community
obviously our current businesses are one
of our most valuable assets the better
they do the better we do as a community
we want to help revitalize our local
economy and recruit new businesses to
come in Fergus Falls so just the high
level of the framework and again I'm
going pretty fast but it goes in order
of this book in front of you our
business development and attraction is
our first goal marketing promotion our
community promoting our community being
very proactive in helping markets our
community is a place to do business not
only within Fergus Falls but in other
metro areas other states and nationally
working with a lot of local partners
there's a lot of folks and entities in
our communities that over
laughs of our same goals so we work
closely with them to make sure we're
having the maximum impact of our efforts
we're not duplicating efforts and we're
not competing for some of the same
grants that are available and then
lastly organizational sustainability I
know there's been several efforts over
the year for economic development and
it's important for us as an organization
that we're putting the policies and
procedures in place so this is an
organization that sticks around for the
long term so just a high-level since May
our first goal of business development
and attraction since May of last year
we've met with owners or representatives
of over 80 businesses within Fergus
Falls how we've worked with tours
wanting to start businesses in the
community hope there's bubble has six
new businesses start to launch their
business and in Fergus I will go through
all of them some of you have heard of
some of these shutter balms Luna
Mountain Marketing Valley Christian
counseling that's a counseling center
that is located in Fargo
we hope them open a new office in Fergus
Falls our Perry esthetics they opened on
New Year's Eve that is a medical spa
laser botox type facility and that's a
really great resource in our community
because prior the closest you could get
that service was in Fargo so we're
keeping a lot of folks within our
community who supported several economic
development projects and we're currently
working with 23 businesses that are
located already in Fergus Falls that are
looking to grow or expand another really
important element of business about an
attraction is really building a robust
portfolio of all of the commercial and
industrial sites that we have in our
community 83 percent of site selectors
those are the folks looking to out
relocate a business our redevelop a
property or that type of thing go online
first and so it's really important that
we have a go-to place to list all these
available properties we work very
closely with the local Realtors and we
also monthly go around town and make
sure that we are very familiar with all
the buildings that are available because
the more we can promote and have a
resource for the the properties
available here the better chances we
have to spur development you can see
kind of a little listing of the types of
buildings we have available here we also
have an internal list of properties
there's some property owners that have
properties that are available for sale
they don't necessarily want to make it
public but we have been able to match
people with those spaces as well so we
have great relationships with the local
real estate agents and if folks have
property
that they want listed on our site
they're more than happy to contact us
for a free service available to the
Fergus Falls area we spent about a
hundred hours a time the past few months
putting together this list and just in
the past eight months we've had over
1,300 direct hits to our website on that
available sites list so it's been a very
valuable tool for a community another
important element is workforce
development I'm sure a lot of you hear
about that right now in the state of
Minnesota there's more jobs available
than there are people so businesses have
really had to shift how they are working
hard not only to attract new employees
but to also retain the ones that they
have and in all the businesses we
visited that by far is the number one
challenge that people are seeing is
trying to find good employees trying to
keep them pleased they have so we're
doing everything we can to try to help
that if you look in your book as well I
think I put it insert in there we do a
series of educational trainings that we
are able to do in partnership with M
State and from a branch from west
central initiative and right now we're
kind of in the first third of our
three-month series of workforce
development trainings that we hold every
Tuesday so our next one that we're
having actually tomorrow is to teach
employers on the importance of employee
engagement and things that they can do
to implement within their business and
also measure their employee engagement
to hope hopefully I'm increased that so
it helps their business our currently
working with six businesses in town to
help them with their recruitment and
retention efforts we partner with the
school district the work based learning
coordinator that's a new position at the
school district that's working to
provide students experiences for
existing businesses here so for those
kids that maybe don't want to go pursue
a four-year degree they want to teach
them other options that are available
for them to stay here in the community
so we've partnered with them and several
local businesses so students are able to
Job Shadow and do different internships
and that type of thing to learn about
the career is available in Fergus Falls
we host the annual Minnesota
manufacturer's week which is done in
October to the community and with the
schools as well to provide them
experiences and career opportunities in
our local manufacturers and we also
participate in the annual west central
Minnesota Career Expo which is a big
event held at Kennedy Kennedy secondary
school that brings in a lot of different
colleges and businesses and employers
and brings in several
high-school students to learn about all
the different opportunities marketing
and promotion standpoint again it's
really important to be proactively
marketing the available sites we have
the incentives how great our community
is you know we're in an age right now
where information is constantly pushed
at you so we work really hard through
several different marketing mediums to
get our message out there you know
designed a new logo and branding
campaign we've developed marketing
materials we've received a $1,900 grant
to help you in your website we launched
our business for breakfast monthly
events so that's kind of in place of the
community conversations that were held
prior we've had three of them now we've
got between 10 and 20 people at each of
them which is fantastic they're open to
the public
breakfast is on your own but we rotate
through the local restaurants in town
and it's been very well received so I
encourage everybody to to come attend
those they're the fourth Thursday of
every month at 7:30 we've spoken to over
23 service groups and organizations
about Greater Fergus Falls and what we
do and we've distributed over 25 press
releases 20 which were published so
thank you to the journal for for helping
us as spread and spread the word about
the good stuff we're doing I won't go
into all the details on this but we've
really heavily focused on our social
media presence as well through Facebook
Twitter Instagram that type of thing we
see a very large reach with the content
that we post we get about an average of
2,000 to 2,500 organic impressions which
that's me that means that's how many
people see what we're posting on their
feed and those are unpaid so that has no
money behind it you can see that's our
number one post was when we helped
promote the RFP for the Kirkbride master
plan we had over 10,000 people who saw
that which was fantastic and then this
ad from a public outreach standpoint we
are always trying to spread what we're
talking about in what we're doing so
obviously following us on our social
media platforms coming to the breakfast
coming to the training events and then
if you know local contractors business
owners realtor's obviously reach out to
us as well so we can help explain all
the things that are that are happening
in town and all the resources that are
available I know since we've launched
our website we have a pretty robust
section of all the different incentives
that are available for businesses to
help them buy property and do remodeling
by
equipment and even to train their
employees and so we've had a lot of
businesses reach out to us to say how
can they help promote those incentives
as well which has been fantastic um we
track everything that we do because a
lot of times it can be hard to prove
your ROI on economic development if you
don't necessarily see dirt moving per se
a lot of times as you know projects can
take a very long time
so since May we had a hundred and nine
different unique inquiries of folks who
either wanted to expand in Fergus by a
site in Fergus needed space and that
just kind of lays out the different
types of enquiries that we received last
year from a freelance standpoint
obviously our partnerships we have a
great partnership with the city of
Fergus Falls in the Port Authority we
work very closely with the Chamber of
Commerce because we're going to visit
businesses we want to ensure that you
know businesses are bombarded by people
who want to visit with them so we work
with the chamber to make sure we're not
visiting the same businesses and we just
share information with each other we
work with we helped unit I and I helped
at one of the otter hold fundraisers
that was a fairy tale breakfast with
princesses event and so we work with a
lot of entities in our in in our
community and then lastly just from an
organizational sustainability standpoint
like I said before it's just really
important that we are building strong
foundations were able to stay here for
the long term and have a long lasting
impact and looking ahead so for 2020 we
obviously all these metrics that we
spoke about as a board we set kind of
goals of what we want to see achieved in
2020 in addition to that some of the
initiatives we're working on we've seen
a very very high need for folks to help
people start their new business and with
a staff of two it can sometimes be
challenging to give these startups a bit
the time that they need so we're working
with a lot of different entities to
develop spread of an entrepreneur
initiative to try to match business
owners who want to start with you know
one on one kind of business creature
mentor to help them through the process
in addition to providing them with some
training kind of the best practices you
need to know as a business because we're
not because we're not able to provide
that level of support we don't want to
see those businesses not open so we're
working to develop a solution to that
problem
we're being extremely proactive in our
outreach to the Fargo Moorhead Grand
Forks
the interesting cloud in metro markets I
go off and sometimes alone sometimes are
some of my board members to pitch to
some of these developers that are doing
development in other communities so like
for example in Fargo we met with the
Kilbourne group and epic companies those
are two big developers in that area that
are very interested to learn have all of
them opportunities in Fergus Falls we're
doing a strategic marketing campaign
with Layton broadcasting so we have a
few different things going on with that
we do a monthly I would start a monthly
podcast why I chose Fergus Falls I'm the
first one aired I think it airs every
Thursday at 10:35 a.m. on KB RF and then
they replay often and there they're
gonna be available on our website too
but the whole logic behind that is we
want to feature you know more subtly but
folks that either have chose to stay in
Fergus or move back to Fergus or take a
job at Fergus why they love it here and
why it's important to them was the
ultimate goal of promoting our community
and in telling others why it's so great
to be here we're also working with the
Port Authority to develop kind of a more
streamlined and proactive approach in
promoting the Port Authority on property
and then we're getting we're continuing
to work with businesses and solicit
feedback on how we can make the
development process easier for people to
develop in town and then we're working
with several businesses in town there's
a big training grant coming up that's
only available once a month so there's
probably six or seven businesses in town
that want to apply and we're working
with them to make sure that their
application can be strong so they can
get the funding to train their employees
and then at the end of it I say thank
you to our board in the city for a
wonderful partnership and our investors
I know it's it's we've been wrong for a
long time but we're working hard to make
sure that we stick around so thank you
for your time
yeah thank you very much yeah I'll just
say that I know that the working
accounts development as we've heard
challenging and we're just really
fortunate to have you and thank you for
working any questions of the council
thank you for the invitation
thank you partnerships
all right next on the agenda parkland
ation declaring February 13th 10020 is
giving hearts day no indeed that
Proclamation whereas giving hearts day
was started in 2008 by Dakota Medical
Foundation and impact foundation was the
first 24-hour regional giving event of
its kind with the alux turn family
foundation joining them as a coast in
2014
whereas giving hearts day is a gateway
for citizens to connect to charitable
organizations doing the important work
improving health the quality of life
throughout our state and where has the
Court of Medical Foundation impact
foundational Stern's Family Foundation
jointly supported the effective stoop to
dramatically improved event raising
efforts of nonprofit organizations by
clicking them for data-driven resource
whose training and coaching whereas last
year more than 30,000 caring meet carry
donors be of sixteen point three million
dollars on giving hearts day and since
its inception
David hearts day has raised over seventy
million dollars just a core of regional
charities and whereas giving our state
2020 includes over four and aiding
nonprofit organizations and charitable
funds spans the entire state of North
Dakota and northwest Minnesota and
includes seven nonprofit organizations
in our home city of Fergus Falls such an
inspiration point productive
alternatives Health Resources Center lb
homes Foundation a wife like me lutheran
brethren the seminary and the Fergus
Falls YMCA as well as additional
organizations where as our giving hearts
2020 goal is to inspire more than
$50,000 giving hearts to supports
cherian giving hearts today many of whom
get to experience the joy of giving for
the first time making the most generous
making us the most generous region on
the planet now therefore I've been Shire
mayor received for his office do hereby
proclaim February 13 2020 as giving
hearts day in the city of Fergus Falls
Minnesota we have representatives from
those seven nonprofits with us this
evening thank you for our work you know
all your work and I'll call on Tim
Anderson you just want to kind of give
us a an idea of the local impact of
craft beer
good evening mr. mayor
knock on the suit thank you for that and
council members and community and thank
you for the opportunity and thank you
for reading the proclamation that means
a lot to nonprofits in Fergus Falls
it's a neat that we got to follow
Greater Fergus Falls because you know
they do a great job and we love it here
this is why you serve here that's why
you're the mayor here that's why my
family and I live here and that's why
you have a lot of really great
nonprofits here and you know I think the
nonprofit's really are the heart and
soul of a community and it just goes
from you know helping children up to the
aging helping people disabilities and
where they're kind of like the quiet
behind-the-scenes group except for
tonight because now we've got red Hertz
and all of us and in grades but we
wanted to kind of give you an overview
of kind of what it is you read the
proclamation but it's February 13th for
hours
any gift of $10 or more on that day is
doubled up to $4,000 or more so your
impact can be doubled and all the money
hundred percent of it stays local and
all you do is you go to productive
productive alternatives but no radio
allowed charities and you can you can go
out to giving hearts day that org and
you can search by Fergus follows you can
search by zip code and you can look at
all bunch of different charities that
pop up and make a donation and there's
so many you know most people give like
six six or more charities because how do
you how do you choose because there's so
many great ones so thanks again for the
support that you guys do and for helping
all the nonprofit's here in Fergus Falls
when I what I get worse all right